By Luc Watelet (Broken ~ Desert ~ Voices)
“How did you get here?” She asks.
Our camels – dromedaries really, but everyone calls them camels here – walk us across the infinite sand. Our companions fled when we were warned of bandits. She had told us we were safe despite appearances. The bandits did leave us alone. Life has become unpredictable to me. It did not use to be this way. Everything was so easy until I tried to be true to myself.
“Don’t you already know my story?” I ask.
She felt familiar to me when I first saw her. I had a tingly sensation in my chest and a feeling ... an experience of recognition like meeting an old friend, or was it a long lost lover? Since we dressed in desert clothes, including a veil, I could draw no more hints from her looks to help me remember her. Only the sound of her voice teases my curiosity. Imagination, like mirages, plays with my mind. I imagine her in ways I would not want her to know, at least not without being more acquainted.
“I like the sound of your voice,” she says.
Hmmm… Is she flirting with me?
“I was married,” I start, “I had a good paying job, then I lost everything, and went bankrupt.”
“I cannot feel you in what you are saying! I want to know you, not your circumstances …”
I don’t understand and shut down.
“You’re not used to people being interested in you, are you?”
“… guess not!”
“We could make love right now and then you would trust me enough to open up, or you could just trust me.”
Before I can tell her of my thoughts, she continues, “… of course, once we make love, you’ll stop seeing me as I am … You’ll dream of making love again, and you’ll start being scared of losing me. Trust wouldn’t last.”
I think of Le petit prince and The Alchemist.
“… so why don’t you just trust me and avoid all this drama.”
Her earnest ways disarms my entangled thoughts.
“Who are you?”
“Mary Magdalene.”
And so I trust her. “When I lost everything, I first felt freedom. I had a new chance at finding meaning in life. I saw a therapist to find out who I am. She listened. One day she told me I should stop therapy, get back to my former line of work and to my former wife. Every fiber of my being screamed that she did not know me. I did not know how to tell her my truth. I did not know how to say she had gotten me wrong when I did not know what was right.”
“I like it… Continue…”
“You like what?”
“You are on your journey. It’s all good, don’t be scared!”
“So I went to see a psychic. What I remember the most is he said people don’t know me because I don’t know myself …”
“You only think you don’t!”
“I am still lost!”
“Only in your mind!”
“?”
“… not in your heart!”
“?”
“Listen to your words! When the therapist urged you to return to your meaningless life you knew she did not speak to your truth, so you weren’t lost! She gave you back to yourself.”
“I don’t think she intended that!”
“Does it matter?”
“Is that water ahead?”
“No! Not for another hour!”
“How do you know? Are there signs?”
She chuckles. “I know this path!”
Time passes. Suddenly, I scream: “How did you do that?”
“Do what?”
“You changed me into a woman!”
“Child! You did it! You wanted to see life as a woman!”
“But when I had thoughts like this before they never came true!”
“Would you stop asking why, and just experience? What’s new?”
“Well … I have lost my lust for you!”
“Ha! Ha! What else?”
“If I can switch gender at will, I can stop focusing on this feeling that I am missing something, and I am less distracted.”
“What else?”
“I have visions … voices!”
“Yes?”
“They celebrate, dance, and sing!”
“Of course! … You see this desert?”
I nod.
“At first you just see sand, infinitely. You’re too much in your old self entangled in thoughts, habits and social expectations. But, with time, when you realize you’re here for a while, you relax and you notice more. It is the same when you turn within. At first your world construct distracts you from seeing life as it really is. The less distracted you let yourself be, the more you can notice your inner world.”
“Why is that so important?”
“The alternative is to live a life where you are just a cog in a broken wheel, the wheel does not matter and you don’t matter. It is safe; but there is no joy in it!”
“So this is all for happiness?”
“No … You truly matter but you don’t see it! We’ll stop there for water …” The voice is deep and male.
Startled, I look around. I see an oasis. It’s just that there is no one else around and the voice jolted untamed desires in my abdomen.
He laughs. “This is your first lesson. Lust guides you to yourself in the beginning, to what turns you on in ways that are personal to you… but lust is not love… it is only the fuel to get you out of lethargy… but lust alone leaves you hurt and empty… love is eternal. Dare to leave the shores of lust aside and share in the rarest love.”
“Rumi?”
“Yes. Would you join us? You have some sacrifices ahead of you.”
“This is a trick question … If I say no, God will punish me!”
“Ha! Ha!! No, you’ll only experience your own conflict, if deep inside you want to join us and you keep ignoring the call. If you need to lust for something … lust for life!”